By the Editor
The United States has offered to provide more than $69 million in additional humanitarian assistance to Chad in response to persistent needs of its crisis-affected people.
This is in view of the exacerbation of the crisis occasioned by the ongoing conflict in Sudan.
Making the announcement yesterday, White House National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby disclosed that the funding which would be routed through the United States Agency for International Development, USAID, would provide vitally needed humanitarian assistance to more than 1.5 million people in Chad.
In a release by its Press Relations office, USAID states that “Chad is facing concurrent crises that are generating significant needs among vulnerable populations in various parts of the country and is currently experiencing its worst lean season ever, with over 3.4 million people in severe food insecurity between June and August”.
The agency adds, “Since the beginning of the humanitarian crisis in neighboring Sudan, more than 610,000 Sudanese refugees and over 200,000 Chadian returnees have crossed into eastern Chad in need of protection and life-saving assistance, including food assistance, health care, and nutrition support. This influx of people, the largest in Chad’s history, has also exacerbated existing humanitarian needs among local Chadian host communities living along the Chad–Sudan border”.
It also noted that persistent armed group activity in Chad’s Lac Province continues to generate significant humanitarian needs, with 707,000 people, 95 percent of the population, requiring urgent life-saving assistance.
USAID then stressed that its additional life-saving relief was coming at a critical moment as refugees and communities across Chad remain with limited access to food assistance, health care, shelter, and safe water sources; assuring that its UN and non-governmental organization partners would provide humanitarian food and multi-purpose cash assistance, health care, nutrition support, protection, shelter items, and water, sanitation, and hygiene services, among other support, for nearly 1.5 million people in eastern Chad and Lac province.
It is on record that United States has provided nearly $162 million in humanitarian assistance for the people in need in Chad to date in fiscal year 2024.
